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I was wondering what would happen to all the components on the surface of the Earth if the Earth suddenly stops rotating but does not stop revolving.

pfnuesel
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Prashant
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  • You might find this useful and entertaining, since it is not too physicsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0-GxoJ_Pcg – turnip Jun 23 '14 at 15:01
  • The Internet connection I am using is very slow so might not be able to view the video but thank you PPG. I would surely watch it later :-) – Prashant Jun 23 '14 at 15:03
  • Possible duplicate: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/37952/2451 – Qmechanic Jun 23 '14 at 15:09

2 Answers2

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The earth rotates on its own axis, revolves around the center of mass between the earth and moon, and revolves around the sun. If the earthed stopped rotating around its axis, there would obviously be no Coriolis effect and the climate would be significantly different. No more Hurricanes or rotating air masses. Only temperature differences would move air masses. The largest effect would be that the day is over 6 months and since there is no cooling effect of the night, the portion of earth exposed the sun would heat up significantly. We can roughly calculate this using the stefan boltzmann law if we consider that the earth recieves about $1300\ \mathrm{W/m^2}$ of radiation and the atmosphere reflects about $100\ \mathrm{W/m^2}$. The remaining $1200\ \mathrm{W/m^2}$, rather than being absorbed by the ground, heating it up slightly, and being radiated out at night, would now heat the ground up until it was able to rereadiate that energy away. Using an emmisivity of .9 yields an equlibrium temperature of $(1200/(.9*5.67*10^.8)$ or 391 kelvin which is 240 degrees fahrenheit. This is above boiling so it is fair to say that all life would stop. On the unilluminated side of earth just the opposite would happen, and that poriton would cool down to a very low temperature. This is unless the earth surface would take so long to heat up that by the time the earth revolved around the sun it was able to reradiate all that heat. Either way, the earth would be very hot or cold and there would be no life!

aPhysicist
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  • Hi aPhysicist, and welcome to Physice Stackexchange! Note that we have Latex-style formatting enabled, so for instance $1300\ \mathrm{W/m^2}$ renders as "$1300\ \mathrm{W/m^2}$," which can improve readability. –  Jun 23 '14 at 16:05
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Another effect depends on what you consider the Earth. If you only mean the core, mantle, and crust, the atmosphere and organic objects (and things made by said organic objects) would still have angular momentum. If the Earth suddenly stops, most of us would be at least flung to the ground, and would probably slide along it for a short distance. Most tall things (skyscrapers, bridges, and perhaps even some trees) would break. The atmosphere would continue to rotate for a length of time, causing severe winds until it stopped. The effects would be most severe along the equator because the linear momentum would be the greatest. Even excluding the effects @aPhysicist discussed, it would still be catastrophic if the earth suddenly stops. (Note, though, that the effects given here only apply if the stop is sudden. If it is gradual, none of these effects would happen.)

Dave Coffman
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